Chapter 156

A dingy and water-stained elevator door slid open, exposing its occupants to a dank underground parking garage, its moist pavement and cracked concrete walls lit by dull, buzzing yellow light.

Held by the arm, Adagio Dazzle was shoved through the opening and into the cold space, her nostrils immediately filling with the wet stink of mildew. She hardly noticed this, however; dull pain shot up her side from the gash on her hip, prompting her to look down at her leg, where her blood had dried and a good portion had flaked off. She reached down to press her hand over the wound, only to be yanked along yet again, renewing the pain all over again.

After a wince and a agonised grunt, Adagio soon noticed that there were several suited men standing in the small nook that bookended the first row of parking spots, standing under the buzzing florescent light boxes, some of them smoking cigarettes.

“Juno,” one of them said to the man who was dragging her along. “Didn’t expect to see you down here.”

“There was a breach,” he explained. “Those Dark Mistress bitches got into the boss’ office; I had to use the back elevator to get away. They obviously don’t know their way around here, so losing them was no big deal.”

Some of the men looked mildly alarmed, and others were indifferent; others still were gawking at the female captive.

“How’d they get in?” the largest of them asked, following that by blowing a stream of smoke from between his lips.

“I dunno,” Juno replied. “We haven’t had time to figure that out. There was a big commotion downstairs first, and then they stormed the office right after. Seemed like a deliberate distraction.”

“They tryin’ to come after the boss?”

“Probably. Joke’s on them, though: he’s not here! Haha! Stupid bitches” he turned to nod at his captive while the others had a chuckle over the perceived failure. “I just grabbed her and got the hell out; I know they don’t like her either, so I figured I’d better not let them take her out. Otherwise we lose our leverage over the sister.”

“She’s probably dead anyway,” the big man replied. “After she burned down that boutique I’ll bet they sniffed her out pretty quick.”

Adagio watched on, her lip curled into a sneer as she listened to the conversation. Somewhere close by, a dog suddenly barked, causing her to nearly jump out of her skin--which in turn sent a searing pain up her side as she turned to find a rather large Doberman only a foot or two away, its teeth bared with aggression as its owner strained to hold it back.

The group of men shared a laugh at her expense.

“HA! Watch out, little missy!” the large one shouted, flicking his spent cigarette to her feet. “That one hasn’t had lunch yet.”

Scowling, the siren turned away from the dog to face him for a stare down, only to notice a second dog of similar proportions sitting next to the man adjacent to him, not aggressive-looking, but watching her attentively nonetheless.

“Speaking of which,” Juno said, yanking her forward to shove her toward the group of men. “I gotta tell the reverend to stay away until the building’s clear.” The siren cried out as she staggered forward, bumping shoulder-first into the big guy, who quickly turned her around and held her by the shoulders so her back was against his front.

Juno produced his phone and lit the screen up, casting a pale glow onto his face as he let out a weary sigh, not unlike the sigh of a man dealing with typical workplace bullshit. After all, his life had experienced a significant uptick in stress ever since Hopper had left the picture. “He’s probably just staring the first service; hopefully he’ll get the text before the second one starts.”

“He always checks his phone after the first sermon,” said one of the other men who’d personally driven the reverend to and from church many times. “Usually he’ll come out to the car and--“

“Shh!” Juno shushed him into silence, looking up from his phone to stare into the darkness that bent around the bend and disappeared out of sight. “You guys hear that?”

The rest of them, including Adagio, paused and listened. One by one, they each held their breath, their eyes darting about as the sound of whistling drifted into their ears, echoing from somewhere off in the distance.

Bewildered, the men glanced at one another, wondering who could have been lurking in their parkade when the music changed from whistling to singing. It was a female voice--a very soft female voice, singing in a very soft and sweet tone.

Several of them had drawn their guns by then, watching the corner to see who might emerge from the darkness. Juno, phone still in hand, decided to make the first move by calling the intruder out.

“HEY! WHO’S THERE!?”

Silence.

Juno stared into the darkness, lips parted as he panted lightly. His breathing stopped suddenly, however, when he heard the faint sound of footsteps echoing through the darkness. All of the men listened keenly as the sound grew louder and more vivid; a slow but steady rhythm of heels on pavement coming closer with each agonising second.

At last, their eyes caught sight of a silhouette emerging from the darkness: a tall, but slender figure covered in black, moving with the same weightless grace of a ghostly apparition. Half a dozen guns were immediately raised in her direction, their owners watching intently as the intruder entered the pool of humming light at the edge of their proximity. The large man quickly took his hand from Adagio’s shoulder to cover her mouth, keeping her cries of protest muffled against his palm.

A young woman with her arms folded tightly under her bust to hug her midsection stepped into the scene; she walked rather timidly, keeping her knees close as she stepped cautiously, hunched forward slightly with her shoulders shrugged as though she was feeling chilled.

She was wearing a tight, black suit with three pink butterflies on her thighs, and on her face was a black mask, identical to the women who’d stormed the reverend’s office. She was tall like them, but noticeably thinner and lighter, though she sported a chestload of magnificent yellow cleavage that looked like it might explode clean out of her top.

On her head was a mound of candy-pink coloured hair, braided and wrapped intricately above her ears and around the back of her head. Her expression was stiff, like she had no wish to be standing there in that dark, musty place, surrounded by water-stained concrete with a slew of guns aimed at her as she stared back with a pair of teal, doe-like eyes.

“Stop!” Juno shouted, raising his hand at her with the phone still in its grip.

She complied and stopped dead in her tracks, hugging her midsection even tighter. “Oh… um--“

“What d’you think you’re doing here!?”

“Um… I-I-I’m trying to help my friends,” she replied, her voice barely above a whisper.

The henchmen gave each other a confused glance, wondering what such a timid creature was meant to accomplish here.

Juno brought his eyes back to her, arching a brow. “Help them do what? Take out the boss?”

The girl hesitated for a moment. She broke eye contact to look down at the damp asphalt. “Um… I don’t know.”

“Heh,” Juno snorted. “OK…” He turned to gesture at the siren. “Are you after her then?”

“No,” she replied flatly.

“Oh? Well then what--” Juno paused when his phone vibrated in his hand. He turned it toward himself to read the notification.

VIN: Got her

The message drew a tiny surge of adrenaline, and he brought his eyes back up to face the masked girl. Behind her, just above her left shoulder, Juno spotted the turquoise glow of a smartwatch floating several yards off in the distance.

She’d been outflanked.

Drawing a breath, Juno kept his eyes on hers to avoid alerting her to her stalker’s presence. All he had to do now was keep talking, keep her distracted until she was restrained, then they could easily lock her up--or better yet, bury her in concrete. As they’d already learned from the red-head in the bar, dumping her in the river was not a permanent solution.

“So what are you doing here then?” he asked, slipping his phone back into his pocket. “How did you find this place, anyway?”

“Um… you have rats down here--lots of them, actually. They seem to know their way around pretty well.”

This was an odd response, Juno thought as he glanced at his peers, who were all watching intently, weapons still drawn. The siren, with her mouth still covered, looked equally perplexed; not so much by the statement, but by the girl’s very presence.

What are the Rainbooms doing here? She wondered this to herself as best she could; searing pain and loss of blood had left her mind foggy, yet the girl’s appearance was enough to make her mind race with questions.

Why this girl? Adagio knew exactly who this was. She recognised the voice, the skin colour, and the mannerisms. This was the Rainboom who was afraid to even be on stage, so much so that she darted out of sight if the spotlight touched even the tip of her skirt. What did she expect to be able to do against a gang of armed men, hidden away from any witnesses? She looked terrified just standing there.

Juno watched the girl dubiously, clearing his throat. “You didn’t answer my question,” he said sternly. “Why’d you come here?” He turned to give a nod toward Adagio. “You sure you’re not after her?”

“Yes.”

He ran his tongue around the inside of his cheek, looking her up and down as he pondered to himself. “Even though it was her sister who burned down your friend’s little shop?”

The masked girl paused, her eyes dropping to the floor.

“Yeah,” Juno smirked. “We know who you are. All of you.” He pointed at the siren. “Your little friend here told us all about you.”

“She’s not my friend,” the girl replied with a soft curtness.

Juno chuckled. “OK, so… you don’t like her, but you’re not here for her, and you’re not here for the reverend. What are you here for?”

Squeezing herself tighter, she brought her knees together and looked down at herself.

“You need to use the washroom? Is that it?” Juno asked, prompting a chorus of chuckles from the others, which prompted her to look up at him again with a slight sneer on her lips. “Hey…” he asked, his hands raised in feigned defence. “I was just asking.”

Those teal eyes shifted onto the siren for a brief moment before returning to him. “Um… she might not be my friend, but I know that burning the boutique down wasn’t their idea. It was yours.”

Juno’s grin quickly disappeared, replaced by a more cautious one. “Alright. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

She nodded. “Mm-hm.”

“So… what, you’re here for us specifically? How do you know it was my idea? Why not someone else’s, or even the reverend’s?” he asked, struggling to keep his eyes on the girl as the man behind her silently slipped into the light. He moved slowly and silently, bringing his fingers to his lips to signal his comrades to stay quiet as her approached her from the left.

“I don’t know whose idea it was,” she replied softly, scrunching her face to shift the mask to a more comfortable position. “But it doesn’t matter. Father Tirek will be dead soon --if he isn’t already-- and I was just planning on killing all of you and taking her with me.”

To this, the group was silent.

The only reaction that differed was that of Adagio, whose eyes widened at the prospect of being rescued--even if it was by a Rainboom. It all made sense now: the ones upstairs --Sunset Shimmer, Applejack, Rainbow Dash-- were there for her. But why?

Aria. It had to be Aria.

Juno swallowed. “I’d like to see how you’re gonna do that,” he said, trying his best to buy time for the man sneaking up from behind to make his move. “We’re bigger than you, we have weapons, and there’s more of us.”

“You’d be surprised,” she replied, showing less of that timid attitude now.

The man behind her was barely ten feet away now. From Adagio’s position, he’d been hidden directly behind the masked girl until that point, but as he neared his target the siren caught sight of him, crouched down and inching his way closer. She drew a breath through her noise to make a commotion about it, hoping to get the masked girl’s attention even if her words were muffled by his hand.

Her captor saw it coming though, and he quickly reached down and grabbed her hip, digging his fingernails into the knife wound. Paralysed by the pain, she let a shrill cry resonate against his hand, her eyelids squeezed tightly together.

Paying no attention, Juno continued the attempt to cast shadows on her plan. “And what if we capture you here? Then what? Like I said, we know who you and your friends are; you do realise that we can come back on all of you, right? You each have homes, jobs, families--all of which can be easily destroyed. Just look at your little sweetheart’s dress shop. D’you want your little animal shelter to go up in smoke too?”

The masked girl glared menacingly at him, but then her eyes dropped to the ground. She flexed her cheeks back and forth, trying to get the mask to sit comfortably. She found it extremely uncomfortable to wear, especially in a potential combat situation, and she wanted nothing more than to take it off. Then she realised something: they already knew who she was.

With this in mind, she pulled one hand free and reached up, keeping her other hand tight to her body as she slipped her thumb under the mask and peeled it upward, slipping it over the top of her head before dropping it to the ground next to her feet.

“Ah… there you are,” Juno gloated as he watched her fold her arms to hug herself yet again.

Adagio, blinking rapidly to clear the moisture from her eyes, paused when she saw the shy girl’s bare face, confirming what she already knew: they’d sent the meekest, most naive and least imposing Rainboom to rescue her.

And she was about to get jumped from behind.

Hopelessness washed over the siren and she let a defeated exhale slip out of her nostrils, her eyelids drifting shut as she waited for it to be over.

Smirking, Juno brought a finger to his chin, his eyes shifting upward as he tried to jog his memory. “Hmm… now which one are you? Rarity owned the dress store… which one owned the animal shelter?” After a moment of thought, his eyes lit up and he snapped his fingers. “Ah! You must be Fluttershy. Is that right?”

Behind her, the stalker had come within a few feet of making his move.

The shy girl nodded, and then brought her eyes up to meet his, her brow marked by a light scowl. “My, um… my friends call me Fluttershy… but you can call me FS1.”

Juno gave an unimpressed sneer, shrugging. “What is that, like some kind of dumb code name?”

“Maybe,” she replied. “Better tell your boy to watch out.”

The smile disappeared from Juno’s face when, half a second later, a shot rang out from under the shy girl’s arm and echoed like a thunderclap down the long, dark corridors. A bloody wound suddenly appeared on the man’s thigh directly behind her, and he cried out, clutched his leg two-handed and fell backwards while the rest of the group looked on in shock.

Switching to a far more aggressive posture, Fluttershy unfurled her arms to reveal a pistol in her right hand. She aimed directly above Adagio’s shoulder and fired without hesitation, punching a hole in the large man’s forehead, causing the siren to jump and the grimace at the feel of warm blood spraying the side of her face.

Then, without warning, the pair of Dobermans began to snarl ferociously as they leapt up to latch their jaws onto their masters’ throats. The screaming men were dragged to the ground, flailing frantically and trying in vain to pull the powerful dogs away; it was no use, though, the vicious animals tore their throats to pieces, spilling their blood onto the ground below.

Juno, in the meantime, armed only with his knife, pulled the weapon out and wound it back over his shoulder to throw it at the shy girl, who was bringing her attention away from the blood-speckled and stunned siren, as well as the horrific carnage that surrounded her.

She swung a leg up and spun around on her heel as the knife soared in her direction, caught it with her toe and sent it off to the right, where it found a new home embedded blade-first in the throat of one of the other men. When Fluttershy came around to face Juno again, she raised her gun and fired the rapid shots: one hit his sternum, the next his Adam’s apple, and the third right on the tip of his nose.

The rest of the group had rushed the shy girl before the newly deceased Juno even hit the ground, and before she’d gotten the chance to turn her gun on them, she was overrun by a massive wall of suits. Her right hand --with which she was holding her gun-- was gripped by a pair of powerful hands, the gun pointed at the ceiling and rendered ineffectual; she fought against it, but helpless to overpower him and before she knew it, her left arm had been grabbed and yanked back as well.

Trapped.

Fluttershy was nowhere close to being strong enough to fight her way free from the restraint of two large men, who held her arms up and out to the sides. Granted, she knew the space was a tad small and crowded for an effective one-person assault; she’d been hoping that she could take all of them out before the swarmed her, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. Perhaps she was a bit rusty?

Just as she was thinking about this and the fact that her feet were still free, one of the other Ministry members stepped up and pointed his gun in her face. Fluttershy stopped her struggling and stared directly into the barrel as it hung barely a foot in front of her face, and as the man on the other end gave a smug smirk before pulling the trigger, she closed her eyes, lowered her head and angled it to the side.

A loud bang sounded just in front of her, followed instantly by a deafening thwack as the round hit her forehead and ricocheted off to her left, where it quickly tore its way through her captor’s throat.

This was a little trick that Golden Arrow once taught her: if you’re going to get shot, make sure they hit the hardest part of you so the bullet bounces off--it won’t hurt you, but it’ll probably hurt someone else!

Her left arm was quickly freed when he released her to grip his throat, gurgling and choking on his own blood. When she once again faced the shooter, she found him staring in shock at his dying crony. Fluttershy wasted no time in driving her high-heel into his knee cap, dropping him to his other knee with a yelp as she brought her free hand around and released the gun from her right, which was still help captive by the other man.

She caught the weapon in her left hand, reached below his arms to press the barrel into his midsection and pulled the trigger. He jerked backward and doubled over, giving the shy girl the opening to bring the barrel up to his chin and spray his brain across the ceiling. She then turned to the man whose knee she stomped, who was just rising to his feet again; she stopped him midway by pointing her gun downward against the back of his skull, pulling the trigger and emptying his head all over the floor through his mouth.

Emptied of rounds, the gun’s slide locked back. With a second thought, Fluttershy dropped the weapon and surveyed the scene; there were only two men left: one of them staring with his gun pointed at her, a look of terror etched on his face, and the other standing with his back against the wall, unarmed, frozen in place with the same expression on his face.

Adagio, was off to the side near the elevator door, leaning on the wall with one hand while clutching her hip with the other.

Clearly, both men had witnessed this harmless-looking young lady take a near point-blank shot to the forehead without so much as a flinch, and were no-doubt now wondering how they would go about dispatching her. After a short stare-off, the man with the gun heard a whimper from his right, and he turned to steal at a glance at the siren.

The wheels could be seen turning inside his head as he slowly turned back to face her, which prompted Fluttershy to quickly shift her eyes onto Adagio and then back at him.

She knew exactly what he was thinking.

They both made their move at the same time, him swinging his arm around to aim at the siren while the shy girl lunged at him to grab his wrist with both hands. She dug her heels in and pulled on his arm to prevent him from aiming; like the others, he was much bigger and stronger, however, and he was able to drag he slender frame along the asphalt until the siren was in his sights while Fluttershy threw her head back and pulled with all her might.

Her strategy was clearly not going to succeed, and so the shy girl shifted her weight and pushed his arm instead, causing him to overshoot his aim. She yanked backward again, shaking his arm back and forth to deprive him of a stable shot.

“HEY!” he shouted to the other man, who was simply watching on in shock. Snapping out of his daze, he looked up to focus on his partner, who nodded at the siren. “GET HER!”

The unarmed man looked over at Adagio, who was trying to distance herself from the scene, but was slow to move due to her wounded hip. He took a step to overtake her, but was quickly stopped in his tracks by the dogs when they lunged in front to protect her, teeth bared and growling viciously at him.

Looking back at his partner, her threw his hands up and shrugged. “What the hell’s up with these dogs all the sudden!?”

“I dunno!” the man with the gun said, still struggling with Fluttershy. “Just get over here and help me!”

Fluttershy brought her attention to the other man as he began to run toward them. There was no way she could contend with two male opponents; Adagio was going to end up shot if she didn’t think of something--and fast.

After taking a quick look at the gun in his hand, she shifted her hand up to his and pulled the release to eject the magazine, which promptly dropped out the bottom. She kicked her leg up next and bounced the clip off her toe, which sent it hurling toward the other man’s face, striking him on the nose.

As he cried out and spun around, face covered, the shy girl grabbed the pistol and slid it apart, leaving only the handle in his grip. Before he’d even realised what’d happened, she took a fast swing at him, nailing his brow with the steel barrel and splitting the skin open. He winced in pain as a stream of crimson raced down his cheek, and he brought his hand up to press on the wound with is palm while in the meantime Fluttershy whirled around and brought her heel across his face, knocking him around to face the other way.

She wasted no time in wrapping an arm around the back of his neck to place him in a headlock before bringing her feet up to place them on the concrete wall that stood nearby; using him as a prop, she ran up the wall and then along the massive cement rafter that ran across the ceiling just above them, flipping herself over backwards and twisting his head right along with her.

He hollered out in pain, but then went silent the instant the loud pop of his neck snapping rang out through the concrete compound. They hit the ground simultaneously, Fluttershy on her feet, her opponent on his back with his head at a rather unnatural angle.

One left.

She craned her neck to look up at the unarmed man, who’d just turned back to see what’d happened, his mouth and chin covered in blood that’d gushed from his nose. He gritted his crimson-soaked teeth as she rose to her feet, sizing him up one last time with those sharp, teal eyes.

He shook his head slowly, and then drew a breath to speak. “What the hell are y--ACK!”

He stopped suddenly, when a searing pain shot through his neck; when he tried to turn to see what it was, he found he couldn’t move. Shifting his eyes down as far they could go, he could see a blood-stained hand next to his throat, which was now rapidly filling with warm fluid as a mass of orange curls moved slowly into his peripheries.

The siren had retrieved Juno’s knife from one of the fallen corpses and rammed it into the side of his throat. She moved in front of him, slowly, just to show him the battered and bruised face of his killer; those glassy, maroon eyes of hers glared into his, her upper lip gradually curling into a disdainful sneer before her nose suddenly scrunched as she twisted the knife like and ignition key.

He grimaced in pain, his legs wobbling like jelly as a stream of hot blood gushed down inside his suit. He stared, not quite at her, but into space, mouth open as he sank to the ground and flopped onto his side, his head smacking the pavement with a dull clunk as his final breaths gurgled in his gullet.

Adagio had kept a tight grip on the knife as he fell, letting it slip from his throat while she watched. His life faded into silence, and she then turned to face Fluttershy, who stood watching, looking somewhat indifferent to the scene. Lips parted, the siren panted slightly as she eyed the shy girl with all the caution she could muster. Her balance wavered and she wobbled in place, her eyelids heavy as her eyes threatened to roll back in their sockets.

“What are you doing here, Rainboom?” she asked hoarsely.

Fluttershy cocked her head. “Is that any way to talk to your rescuer?”

Adagio took a moment to stare vacantly, too weary to show much expression. “Why?”

The shy girl sighed and looked down at the floor, shaking her head. “Are you really gonna ask me that now?” she asked, looking up at the siren again.

“How did you know I was here?”

Fluttershy rubbed her lips together, thoughtfully. “It was your sister. She came to us after she… burned down Rarity’s boutique.”

Adagio looked slightly more alert when she heard this, then her eyes dropped to the ground. “She actually did it…”

Fluttershy nodded. “Yeah.”

The siren closed her mouth to swallow, her brows furrowing in response to the pain. Then she drew a breath and faced the shy girl again. “Where is she now?”

“At my house,” Fluttershy replied. “With Sonata and Goldie.”

Adagio’s breathing paused. “She’s with Sonata?”

The shy girl nodded. “Mm-hm. Don’t worry, she‘s safe.”

Closing her eyes, the siren drew a deep breath and let her head hang, reaching up to rub her forehead as she let her brain absorb the news. Dizziness overcame her rather suddenly, and she teetered slightly, nearly dropping the knife as she threw her arms out to catch her balance.

Fluttershy took a quick step forward in response, reaching out with one arm before stopping just short of the siren, who’d regained her balance by then. “Oh my… you’re not looking well; we’d better get moving.”

“I feel… thirsty,” Adagio muttered, rubbing her temple.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” Fluttershy replied as she stood beside her, reaching around her shoulder, but not touching her. “Do you, um, mind?”

The siren moved her hand from her temple to look over at the shy girl, and, after seeing how she was postured, exhaled and reached over to wrap her arm around Fluttershy’s shoulder for support.

Fluttershy reached around and placed her hand on Adagio’s good hip, feeling the burned of the siren’s weight; Adagio Dazzle was not a petite girl by any means, her height and build very similar to Sunset’s, and it quickly dawned on the shy girl that if she passed out, she would have a very difficult time getting her out.

“OK… with me,” she coached, taking the first step and then waiting for the siren to follow suit. “We should hurry so we don’t miss the others,” she said, hoping to expedite the process.

Adagio simply nodded and limped along, being careful not to let her injured hip bump against Fluttershy’s. After a few steps, however, Fluttershy stopped when she saw her mask lying on the ground.

“Oh! Hold on,” she said, unwrapping their arms to bend down and pick it up. After taking a moment to re-attach it to her face, she shifted the mask around with her fingers, making strange faces to get it to sit comfortably. Then she faced the siren. “How does it look?”

Adagio stared for a moment. “Dumb.”

FS1 sighed and looked down at the asphalt. “I know. I don’t really like wearing this thing much at all.” She faced Adagio again. “Don’t tell Rare I said that.”

The siren blinked once or twice and then exhaled, letting a tiny smile coax the corner of her mouth upwards. “I guess I owe you that much, Rainboom,” she replied as she slipped her arm over FS1’s shoulder again.

As the pair shuffled off toward the darkness, Adagio raised her head to see where they were going. “Do you know the way outta here?” she asked.

“Not really,” FS1 replied. “But the critters will show us the way out.” She faced forward and nodded, prompting the siren to look ahead.

In the darkness, she could see dozens of beady little eyes gleaming back at her. After another glance at the masked girl, Adagio snorted and shook her head, facing the ground to watch her feet while FS1 turned to look over her shoulder to make a kissing sound, which prompted the two dogs to run to catch up with them.